


In the Past and In the Present

by azephirin



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, American Politics, Casual Sex, Cunnilingus, F/M, Hotel, Infidelity, Lawyers, Musicians, One Night Stand, Original Het, Piercing, Politics, Reunions, Students, Virginia, Washington D.C.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-01
Updated: 2010-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:17:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Choices in the past and in the present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Past and In the Present

**Author's Note:**

> Original hetfic. I've accepted the fact that I'll never finish the longer piece of which this was initially a part, but I do like this section. Copyright © me, 2008.

It would take Eli a few years to realize how he could control a crowd, shake people into a heart-thumping frenzy and then slowly calm them down again, move and disturb them, call out to them like a revivalist preacher and listen for their fervent response. He'd done it at the Westwood bars where Los Diablos had gotten their start, but Eli assumed that his effectiveness was due to the fact that he knew most of the audience; as the band got a name, he'd done it at clubs everywhere in the Los Angeles area, but he'd assumed that it had something to do with the way he knew his home city, as thoroughly and as lovingly as he knew his family. It was not until the band's first tour that Eli started to realize maybe it was something he was doing, something independent of the makeup of the audience, some alchemy that he and Brad and Hector worked on their own.

They were in Charlottesville, a Southern university town where the bar served Miller, imported microbrews, and sweet tea. The audience responded like an eager lover, and Los Diablos finished their set and bowed to a crowd that cheered them like war heroes. Los Diablos' singer, guitarist, and drummer exchanged high-fives, and Hector and Brad went backstage to change, and Eli jumped off the stage and went back to the bar.

Sweaty curls coated his neck, and Eli gathered them with his hands to try and cool his skin. He closed his eyes. The air was humid and beery. "Need something to tie it back with?" a female voice asked, and Eli opened his eyes.

She was medium height and probably curvy: her t-shirt revealed rounded breasts, but her loose-fitting jeans, patched at the knees, covered up hips and thighs. She wore hiking boots, and proffered a hair tie. Her own hair, recently loosed, was auburn and curly.

Eli looked at the tie. "It'll get sweaty."

"It washes. Here, take it."

Eli did. She perched on the stool next to him and the bartender, another woman in her early twenties, materialized. She and the bearer of the hair tie exchanged kisses on each cheek, French-style. "I'll have a Sam Adams, and he'll have one, too, and some iced tea."

"How do you know I like Sam Adams?" Eli asked.

"Because everyone likes Sam Adams." She pulled a knee up to her chin and fixed Eli with an appraising look. "Your band rocks, I'll give you that, but your idea of the social contract is totally off."

"How so?" Eli asked. He got a lot of reactions to his music, but generally no one challenged the more arcane points of political theory. He hadn't argued Locke since college, although college hadn't been so long ago.

She was an engaging, sardonic debater, and it sounded like she had experience arguing this sort of thing. Debate team, he thought, and probably a poli sci senior thesis. And, it was clear, Republican club. She didn't look like a Republican, but neither, he was told, did he look like an anarchist.

"Political science major?" Eli said during a break in the argument.

"Geology."

"How do you know so much about early modern political theory?"

"I'm in my third year at UVA Law. I'm specializing in legal history and theory, so I've read a lot of political science on the side. The social contract is one of my favorites. How'd you get into Locke?"

"I made it through a year of a master's program in poli sci."

"Only a year?"

"The band sort of took over my life. I know enough to write my lyrics. Maybe one day I'll go back."

The girl smoothed back her curls. They were longer and more plentiful than Eli's own, but they looked softer; no doubt she took better care of them. "I'm Chantal."

Eli put out his hand. "Eli."

They shook. Her fingers were slender, nails short, and they were covered with silver rings. There was a claddaugh ring on the middle finger of her right hand; the crown pointed outwards, which if Eli recalled correctly meant this woman was single, or at least unmarried. He tried to guess her sexual orientation, but couldn't; she had a mountain girl's body and a mountain girl's clothes (but certainly not a mountain girl's education), and it was hard to pin a sexual orientation on that. "Let me see your rings," he said. "Do they have stories behind them?"

She smiled. "Of course." Right hand, thumb: plain silver band. "I bought this in Salem, Massachusetts, in a little antique shop run by a woman and her son. They priced it by the ounce, so it was wicked cheap." Ring finger: "High school class ring." Middle finger: "Claddaugh ring. I bought it in Dublin. Which I realize every American does upon going to Dublin."

"That's an Irish wedding band, right?"

"Traditionally. Now everyone wears them. If the heart is facing out, you're single; if it's facing in, you're taken." Her heart faced out.

Index finger: a swirling engraved design. "Birthday present from my sister." Left hand, index finger: a thick band of plain silver with a lapis cabochon in the middle. "My best friend bought that for me in Camden Town, in London." Middle finger: "This one's white gold, actually. It was going to be a wedding ring, but the wedding was called off."

"Isn't that sort of a bad omen?"

"Not really. Just a reminder not to take anything for granted in this life."

"Was it your wedding?"

Chantal smiled. "No. I'd probably be less philosophical if it had been. It was my aunt's. She left the ring in a drawer at my mother's house, and when I found it, she said I could have it."

Ring finger: a small, delicately worked band with an opal set in its center. "Present from my then-boyfriend. If I were a real girl, I'd probably have thrown it in his face or something, but I liked it too much to give back."

"What do you mean, if you were a real girl?" Eli asked, noticing the word "boyfriend" and placing it in the back of his mind.

"You know, a wearer of makeup, demander of gifts from boyfriend, donor of money to animal rights groups, that kind of thing."

"Was it a nasty breakup?"

"It seemed like it at the time, because I'd never really broken up with anyone before. But we're friends now."

"Was he a Republican, too?"

Chantal looked nonplussed for a second, and then she started to laugh. "What makes you think I'm a Republican?"

"Well, if you're not, you're in the wrong party. Aren't you?"

"I'm actually registered as an independent; there's no way I'd align myself with such a corrupt entity as the Republican Party. Especially now that the Christian Coalition types have taken it over."

"Not a fan of the Moral Majority?"

"Hell no. I'm an old-school, limited-government, personal-freedom Republican. I actually thought about joining the Libertarian party, but honestly I think most of their politics are more aligned with you than with me. I met some people who don't even think city and county governments should maintain roads."

Eli took a swig of Sam Adams and grinned. "Maybe we shouldn't get into that."

Chantal grinned back. "Or maybe we should."

— | —

Brad and Hector took off around one: Brad wanted to shower, and Hector seemed to have found a female companion. They greeted Chantal politely, didn't mention the fact that Eli had a girlfriend back in Los Angeles, and went their separate ways. Eli bought the next round: a microbrew suggested by Chantal, brewed in Charlottesville by a retired history professor turned beermaker. It tasted of honey and blackberries, and it was delicious.

Eli and Chantal ran through a critique of the Supreme Court, a comparison of the American and Japanese justice systems, and started on police brutality—Eli had lived in Los Angeles for the Rodney King trial, and Chantal was from Prince George's County, Maryland, which was beginning an investigation of its own police force. "Where's Prince George's County?" Eli asked. He imagined somewhere in the Maryland mountains, lush and densely green.

"Suburb of D.C. It borders on the District's eastern line."

So she was suburban, then, no mountain girl she. "I took you for a country mouse," he said.

She laughed. "Born and raised in PGC. Riverdale, Maryland: that's my hometown. Why'd you think I was from the country?"

"Um, the way you're dressed, I guess."

"Just vintage poverty-stricken student."

He wondered if the poverty was an affect—if her family had money. "Your parents still live there?"

"Yup, in the house I grew up in."

"What do they do?"

"My dad has a lawnmower-repair business, and my mom teaches fourth grade."

So merchant-class comfortable, then, but certainly not wealthy. Neither mountain girl nor rich kid, just a repairman's daughter making her way in the world. "So how'd you wind up with your politics?"

"You mean, because I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth? I'm a realist. The government is an ungainly, untrustworthy institution, and I think individuals and private groups are better suited to take care of each other than the government is suited to take care of them."

"I think you're an anarchist, and just embarrassed to admit it."

"Why would I be scared to admit it?"

"Well, it seems kind of antithetical to law school, don't you think?"

"Studying something doesn't mean you agree with it. I mean, I took German in high school, but I'm not about to move to Leipzig."

"Yeah, but I bet you can get kicked out of UVA law school just for reading Bakunin."

"They probably call you up in front of the dean on immorality charges."

There was a pause, and Eli realized that he had made a decision. He watched as she made her own decision, too, though likely hers was not a betrayal. She leaned forward and put her hand on his thigh, and he tangled his right hand in her exuberant hair and kissed her.

 

— | —

The debate was forgotten. They kissed in the bar until the bartender, with an amused smile, said that the bar was closing. Eli was going to turn, go back to the hotel, do the right thing. But outside the bar, a few yards down, was a bench with no one on it, and they sat on the bench and kept kissing. Both of Eli's hands found their way into her hair this time, and her fingers traced the curves of his ears and his jaw. It was only after several passersby hooted at them that they stopped again.

Chantal caught her breath. "My apartment isn't too far from here. Do you want to, um, have coffee?"

Eli gently bit a tendon on her neck and she gasped. "I would love coffee," he said.

It took both of them a while to stop giggling.

 

— | —

She lived in a small studio in the basement of a old, pretty house. She ferreted through her cupboards, then realized she was out of coffee, but had half a cupboard full of tea, which Eli preferred anyway. He went over to take a look at what she had, and he was about to pull out the canister of oolong and ask if she had a diffuser for it, but he could feel her warmth behind him, and instead he stood up and pushed her against the counter. Hips to hips, thighs to thighs, and he reached to cup her breasts through her shirt. Her hands slid into his back pockets and pressed him against her. Her nipples were hard, tangible even through shirt and bra, and she put warm hands on the bare skin of his back, under his t-shirt.

Underneath the boxy clothes, she was as lush as he had imagined, but obviously strong, with long muscles in her back and thighs. Her breasts were as round as Eli had thought they'd be; they fit exactly into his hands, and the nipples into his mouth. He explored her for a while—the salty skin of her neck, the rims of her ears, the nobbly curvature of her spine—and let her explore him. Her skin retained a slight citrus scent underneath the stronger smells it had picked up in the bar.

Chantal's bed was soft, and she smiled when Eli pushed her onto it. He slid his tongue down further, around her navel (which made her giggle), and lower, between her thighs, where she tasted like salt and lemons. She took a sudden breath and let it out in a moan. Her fingers wound in his hair, tightening every time she gasped. He licked and nibbled and drew pictures with his tongue, and he could feel her orgasm, the tightening of her muscles, then her breath's release as they relaxed.

A condom, a moment of friction, a gasp that could have been pleasure or pain, and then he was inside. There was no mistaking her moan this time, and he felt her teeth in his shoulder. He braced himself on his elbows and licked the sweat from her neck. Her fingers played on his back and his ass, pushing him further in. She opened her eyes and smiled hungrily. "Harder. Please."

He could have gone in so hard he'd have reached for her head. But he didn't know her limits, so he erred on the gentle side. She opened her eyes again; there was the same hunger that he would not have thought, upon first meeting her, existed. "Really. Harder."

"I don't want to hurt you."

He could feel the metal of her rings as she urged him into her. "You won't. Unless you break the skin, it's not too hard."

She arched to met him and this time it was Eli who moaned. When he came, it was with her nails urgent in his back, his cry muffled against her skin.

 

— | —

If he'd been less tired, Eli might have had the presence of mind to collect his clothing and go, but he was exhausted, and Chantal's head was a soft weight on his chest. He fell asleep almost immediately.

— | —

When he saw her again, it was three years later. They were playing DC, three sold-out shows at the 9:30 Club, and afterwards, at a bar a few blocks away, Eli saw a head of cropped auburn hair and had a flash of something like memory. He tried to think of who he knew in DC, or who he knew with hair like that who might be in DC, but no one came to mind. The person turned, and it was when he saw the outlines of her breasts and shoulders in a silky gray shirt that he remembered the shapes of them in his hands and the taste of them in his mouth. He hadn't forgotten the name: Chantal. It had been the first time he'd ever cheated on someone.

He remembered her legs around his hips, how she'd rocked beneath him, and the warmth of her asleep against him. The sharp intake of Allison's breath when he'd told her what had happened. Chantal was with some friends, a couple of blondes, a tall black woman, and a small Asian woman with a bright red streak in her hair. Chantal had a pint of something, and she was laughing. She used her hands to punctuate her speech, and he could see the glint of her rings, but he couldn't see any other jewelry; it was as he remembered. "Be back," he said to Hector, and made his way across the bar.

A few people stopped him on his way, and Eli made himself pause to talk to each of them: when they'd first gotten a major-label deal, they'd sworn never to become those assholes who are too good for their fans. These people didn't know that he had a target, an agenda; they'd taken their time and their money to come to his show and they had enjoyed it. One woman said, seriously, that her favorite live musicians were Los Diablos and the Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, and Eli told her, also seriously, that it was possibly the best compliment he'd ever gotten. Then, "Chantal," he said, and she turned around.

Blank for a second, those green eyes, dark in the dim light. Then a widening, an opening of her mouth: "Oh my God. Eli!" There was a part of him surprised that she remembered him, and another part—not entirely separate—that was pleased.

"I wasn't sure you'd remember me," he said.

Her mouth quirked. "I do. I just wouldn't have expected to see you in this bar. It's kind of a Capitol-Hill-policy-geek place."

"A friend of mine in L.A. recommended it. Said it had beers from twenty-five different countries. And hot policy geeks."

"OK, you made that up."

"I did," Eli said, and he found that he was smiling, too. "But it's true." A pause. "So do you live here now? I wouldn't have expected to see you in this bar, either."

"Yeah, I moved here right after law school. I got a job with the ACLU working on free speech cases."

"No more legal history? Social contract?"

"God, I can't believe you remember that. Not directly, but it's still useful. I wound up doing a First Amendment clinic my last semester, and I really fell in love with it. Wound up ditching the corporate job I had lined up, and going to work for the ACLU. And now here I am." She drank from the pint and said, "I had heard that your band was in town—a couple of my friends went to the show tonight—but no way did I expect you to end up here."

"You didn't go?"

She shook her head. "Not because I didn't want to, but because it seemed—I don't know—kind of strange. Like, I slept with this guy a long time ago—and it was really good, don't get me wrong—and now I'm going to see his band play but he's not going to know who the hell I am. It just seemed weird. I do really like the new song, though. DC101—that's the main quote-unquote alternative station here—plays it all the time."

"Just tell me you don't change the station."

"Of course not," Chantal said, her mouth quirking again. "I sing along."

They drifted away from her friends and ended up at the bar. Eli bought her another of whatever she was having—which turned out to be an obscure French cider—and got a scotch for himself. It was perhaps not unpredictable, he thought, when they left together.

"I actually have coffee this time," she said. Their fingers were laced together, casually but with intent—the urgency of three years ago was gone, perhaps, Eli thought, because they both knew where this was going, and it didn't matter if it took a few more minutes to get there.

"Actually," Eli said, "you should come with me. We stay at places without roaches now."

"Somewhere nice where no mosquitoes at?"

"Did you just quote Jay-Z?"

"The Constitution protects against self-incrimination."

Eli kissed her smile, and it still tasted the same.

 

— | —

 

The bed was expansive and welcoming, with crisp white sheets, and this time it was Chantal who pushed him onto it. Eli sprawled back and looked up at her as she straddled his hips. She bent down and kissed him, settling her hands over his just firmly enough to let him know he was pinned. "You've got me," Eli said. "What are you going to do with me?"

She kissed him again, stretching out across his body, and said, "What do you want me to do with you?"

Eli laced their fingers together. "What I can tell you," he said, "is what I want to do with you. And I want to go down on you until I've got you all over my face and you're screaming my name. Then I want you on top, and I want to watch you while you ride me, play with you while you're fucking me. That sound good to you?"

"All of that sounds good to me." Eli flipped them over then, and Chantal wrapped a leg around his hip, pulled him down closer. "So are you going to do something about it," she continued, "or are you all talk?"

 

— | —

When he got her shirt off, her breasts were as spectacular as he remembered, full and round, with brown areolas and pale pink nipples.

And with some augmentations.

He ran his fingers over the two piercings, listening to her gasp at the touch. "Those new?" he asked.

"About a year and a half."

He lowered his mouth to one, tongue flicking carefully around the barbell as she keened with pleasure. He shifted to the side and found the button to her black pants; he pushed them down and found satisfyingly daring underwear, red with cream lace, at charming odds with her exterior. Her legs parted for his hand, and soon she was divested of the panties, too. Her clit and cunt were hot and ready for him, and she arched up against his touch.

He played her with mouth and hands, lips and tongue on her nipples, fingers between her thighs. It wasn't long before she was shuddering with orgasm, and he kissed her through it and the aftershocks until she said, "Why aren't you naked?"

He sat up a little to undress, but Chantal shook her head. "Stand up. I want to watch." He obeyed, and her gaze was both avaricious and satiated as she watched him strip off his T-shirt, then jeans, then boxers.

It was a shock, but an unqualifiedly positive one, when she sat up, put her hands on his hips, and took his cock in her mouth.

He stroked her hair—_don't pull, don't thrust too hard, oh God how can I not, fuck, Chantal, please_—and tried not to let his knees buckle, and it was almost too much to remember when the heat of her mouth was wrapped around him. She moved her hands to trail a light touch over his balls and the insides of his thighs, and it was light and teasing and good. He said her name some more, and he said please, and he whimpered outright when she stopped.

Except that she guided him back down the bed, rolled a condom over his cock, and then climbed on top of him.

Eli loved it like this, letting the woman ride him for her pleasure, watching her face as she moved them both towards orgasm. It was no different with Chantal, and he reached to stroke her clit again, to twist a barbell gently as she quivered under his fingertips. They went slowly, no hurry, drawing the climax out; his index finger hit her clit just the right way and she dissolved into orgasm again. He bit his lip bloody trying not to come when she did.

It worked, at least for a few minutes. She bent down and whispered, "Come for me, Eli, right now. Let me see you," and he did, shaking and crying out, pouring himself into her.

When he'd recovered enough, he nudged her down to the side and stripped off the condom—then bent down to lick at her again. Third time was the charm, after all. She said, "I don't think I can," and then he used his tongue, and she did.

**Author's Note:**

> Eli has, of course, long since broken up with Allison—they'd been unhappy for a while, he told her pretty much immediately about the cheating, and she dumped his ass. At the present time, postcoital, Eli and Chantal are lounging around, cuddling, making out now and then, maybe ordering room service, and he finally confesses that he had a girlfriend, with whom he was understood to be exclusive, when they first hooked up three years ago. Chantal is **pissed**. She would never have slept with him had she known that, and she feels like she was made party to something completely against her personal morals. She puts on her clothes and leaves. Unfortunately I'm not sure what happens after that, because I never finished this. Er, hope you enjoyed what there was of it, anyway!


End file.
